The present invention relates generally to a system for measuring a population""s exposure to and interactions with electronic media (hereinafter, xe2x80x9celectronic media measurement systemsxe2x80x9d), and more particularly, to a cooperative electronic media measurement system using media handlers to extract information from, or otherwise obtain information about, presented media objects, including identification tags, if present, for collection by software agents on behalf of a centralized media research facility.
The success of any advertising campaign depends on the accurate placement of advertisements within media, and the verification that specific advertising messages were presented in accord with a predefined media plan. Generally, an advertising campaign is targeted for one or more segments of a population, with media planners determining the best media a vehicles to reach the target audience. In this manner, the advertiser seeks to find the most efficient media to minimize the cost to deliver a desired audience.
Thus, prior to executing a given advertising campaign, media planners use syndicated research, such as Nielsen ratings, to determine the best media vehicles to reach a target audience. In addition, media planners utilize other information sources to research and compare the costs associated with reaching an audience through each available media vehicle. During a given advertising campaign, it is helpful to measure the target audience""s exposure to the advertising messages, since media planners might make corrections in order to optimize the execution of the media plan. Likewise, after a given advertising campaign, media planners often analyze the execution of the campaign to confirm that the advertising messages reached the targeted audience to determine the accuracy of the campaign""s messages in reaching the targeted audience.
As audiences have fragmented, due to the increasing number of available channels and online options, it has become increasingly challenging for media planners to determine which media vehicles provide the best avenue to a given audience. The Internet, in particular, provides advertisers with many media options and is becoming ubiquitously available in an expanding variety of personal electronic devices, far beyond its initial limited availability to users via computer terminals and desktop computers. As with other media, advertising has become an important part of Internet revenue models. Much of the Internet""s value to the advertising community is due to its enormous and evolving diversity of advertising formats, including the banner ad and Java applets, and its capability to deliver customized and relevant advertising to end users. For a more detailed discussion of advertising media, see D. Jugenheimer et al., Advertising Media Strategy and Tactics (W.C.B. Brown and Benchmark, 1992), incorporated by reference herein.
Thus, the Internet provides an efficient mechanism for matching the advertising message to the appropriate segment of the audience. Such diverse advertising formats, however, present challenges for measuring a population""s exposure to and interactions with such advertisements. While the success of the Internet can be attributed, in large part, to its open media standards that permit the creation and delivery of content having diverse formats across many platforms, there is currently no user-centric system capable of adequately measuring the diverse media formats across the growing variety of Internet-enabled consumer platforms, consistent with the needs of the advertising community.
Generally, a given population""s exposure to and interactions with media is measured by knowing the television channels and other information sources that the members of the population select. This can be performed either as a census, where the choices of the entire population are collected, or as a sample, where a statistically valid sub-population or panel is chosen to represent the entire population. Nielsen Media Research, for example, uses a panel of households, known as xe2x80x9cNielsen Families,xe2x80x9d for measuring television viewing. Such panels enable research companies to correlate demographics, such as age, gender, income and education, with choice of content.
Conventional content frequently contains, or is associated with, metadata that provides information about the content. For example, many broadcasters transmit information with conventional programming to help identify the content, for example, by program and episode. Nielsen, for example, extracts such accompanying information for measurement purposes to track the programs viewed by certain members of a panel. In addition, smart electronic program guides use such accompanying information to help individuals or their agents find content of interest.
Similarly, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), has endorsed the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), which is an open standard for tagging information and coding content on the Internet. The PICS standard is designed to allow software to automatically filter content that individuals choose not to receive, such as violent content, according to a ratings system. The PICS standard provides parents and other individuals with the ability to select categories of content that can be automatically blocked, in a similar manner to V-chip technology, for conventional programming. While the PICS standard allows an entire web site or static pages to be rated, the PICS standard does not permit tagging content on an object level.
In addition, traditional electronic advertising, such as television and radio advertisements, have unique identification codes, or Industry Standard Commercial Identification (ISCI) codes, which are used for handling, broadcasting, storing and retrieving commercials. Under the ISCI standard, an ISCI alpha prefix and an ISCI numeric code identify each commercial. An ISCI prefix is assigned by ISCI to national and regional advertisers and advertising agencies. The ISCI code may be used in any manner, at the discretion of the prefix owner, provided the code consists of four letters followed by four numbers. Although ISCI codes are not presently encoded as computer readable data with each advertisement, they might evolve to do so for Internet advertising, to better manage advertising on the Internet.
There exists both xe2x80x9cpullxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cpushxe2x80x9d models for delivering Internet content. On traditional web sites, individuals xe2x80x9cpullxe2x80x9d content by browsing. These web sites can use tools to analyze the xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d to their sites in real-time. Additionally, there exist xe2x80x9cpushxe2x80x9d models of content delivery, such as provided by PointCast(trademark). PointCast(trademark) is a webcasting service that xe2x80x9cpushesxe2x80x9d or streams a variety of information, including editorial and advertising content, to a receiving software component, such as their proprietary screensaver, or Microsoft""s Internet Explorer browser, version 4.0. Presently, each PointCast(trademark) subscriber self-reports demographic information. Therefore, PointCast(trademark) can provide advertisers with user-centric information about advertising exposure. Self-monitoring, however, is contrary to advertising industry guidelines, which express a preference for measurement by a disinterested third party. In addition, the PointCast(trademark) system is limited to measuring only electronic media distributed by PointCast(trademark).
Even assuming that an independent auditor verified such site-centric measurements, the measurements often do not accurately reflect the activity of individuals. For example, many of the xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d on a web site are associated with electronic agents that perform functions on the Internet on behalf of individuals. Examples of such electronic agents include web robots, issued by search engines such as those provided by Infoseek Corp. to index the contents of the Internet, and personal agents that automatically retrieve information from the Internet that matches the specified preferences of an individual. Thus, such electronic agents increase the traffic count of the respective web site, as they are not necessarily representative of an individual viewing Internet content. For example, an agent might download the entire contents of a site, while the user only views a single article. Proxy servers, on the other hand, which cache or copy Internet content to a local server or hard disk drive for subsequent access, can decrease the traffic count of a given web site. Proxy servers are used to reduce access time by storing a copy of information that was recently downloaded from a site. Thus, upon a subsequent request, the information can be delivered from the local server rather than the Internet without the knowledge of the web site traffic counter.
While conventional electronic media measurement systems, such as Nielsen Media Research""s PeopleMeter(trademark), have successfully measured traditional media, such as television and radio, such systems are not easily extendable to the Internet environment. In addition, the site-centric measurement approaches discussed above have proven unsatisfactory. In order to accurately measure a population""s exposure to and interactions with such electronic media, a user-centric measurement approach is needed which is based on a panel chosen to be statistically representative of the total population of interest. Current user-centric Internet measurement systems, however, such as the NPD Group""s PC Meter(trademark), are based on interception and interpretation of electronic media presented to members of a panel. Such interception techniques, however, rely on observing calls by software applications to the operating system and require privileged access into operating system internals. Furthermore, PC Meter(trademark) is currently limited to household users of the Windows(trademark) operating system, which may not be statistically representative of the total population of interest. For a more detailed discussion of the PC Meter(trademark) system, see PCT Published Application Number WO 96/41495.
It is believed that observing operating system internals will become increasingly challenging, if not impossible, with the trend towards more secure operating systems and communication security. Windows NT(trademark) from Microsoft(trademark), for example, implements a concentric ring structure of ascending privilege with an outermost ring of lowest privilege and an innermost ring of highest privilege, from which applications are excluded, based on the processor ring architecture specified by Intel Corporation. As security services become more available to Internet applications, both for computer-to-computer communications and application-to-application communications, much of this internal traffic will be encrypted. In addition, such operating system monitoring techniques will be challenging to implement within the many proprietary implementations of Internet-enabled devices, such as WebTV(trademark). Even assuming that such user-centric measurement systems are successful in obtaining access to these communications, it is very challenging to understand what the intercepted messages mean.
A recent industry article indicates that a new company, Relevant Knowledge Inc., of Atlanta, Ga., has developed a real-time approach to compete with the PC Meter(trademark) system.
Although Relevant Knowledge Inc. did not comment publicly for the article, it does not appear that Relevant Knowledge Inc. is using a cooperative approach. Rather, it appears that Relevant Knowledge Inc. is monitoring information, using interception and interpretation, and leveraging the communication capabilities of the Internet to distribute their monitoring software to their panel members and to collect data in real-time.
As apparent from the above-described deficiencies with conventional electronic media measurement systems, a need exists for a universal system for measuring electronic media having diverse formats, including television, radio, Internet, and online services, across a plurality of platforms. A further need exists for a cooperating system that extends the open media standards of the Internet to measure a population""s exposure to and interactions with such electronic media. Yet another need exists for a system to measure traditional television, radio, cable television, digital satellite programming and advertising delivered to households that use Internet-enabled computers and appliances for viewing, listening and interacting with such content.
Generally, according to one aspect of the invention, media information presented to a panel member by means of a panel member-computing device is measured by a media research controller for subsequent reporting to one or more research customers. The panel member-computing device may receive the media information by means of a network connection, or from one or more local sources, such as prerecorded media obtained from a CD-ROM or DVD player, or may generate the media objects in real-time, or a combination thereof. The media research controller registers advertisements and other media for subsequent measurement and provides a unique identification tag that may be added to, or associated with, the existing media object for identification purposes. In addition, the present invention extracts information from, or otherwise obtains information about, presented media objects, including metadata or other information associated with a given media object, for later collection by the media research controller even when the media object has not been previously registered and tagged by the media research controller. Thus, a panel member""s exposure to and interactions with all electronic media is measured, regardless of whether the media has been previously registered or tagged for identification purposes. The panel members are preferably chosen for their demographics and have agreed to participate in a research panel to have their electronic media measured.
The media research controller preferably assigns one or more software agents, hereinafter referred to as research data collection (RDC) agents, to measure each panel member""s exposure to and interactions with electronic media. Thus, each research data collection agent serves as an intermediary between the local environment of a panel member and the central media research controller. In one embodiment, a research data collection agent is associated with each computing device utilized by a given panel member. Thus, a single panel member might be assigned multiple research data collection agents, if required, to measure the panel member""s use of electronic media across multiple devices. Furthermore, a single research data collection agent may serve a plurality of panel members utilizing the same computing device.
According to a further aspect of the invention, cooperative media handlers are utilized by the panel member-computing device to present media to a panel member and to extract information from, or otherwise obtain information about, the media objects, including identification tags, if present, for collection by the research data collection agents. As used herein, the term cooperating system means a system that relies on the media handler software which presents the media to cooperate by gathering and developing information about media activities of end users, and transmitting such activity information to the media research controller, either directly or indirectly via the research data collection agents, in effect acting as agents of the media research controller, as opposed to conventional approaches of intercepting and interpreting the media activities of end users.
As used herein, the term media handler includes persistent software components which extend the capabilities of a software application or operating system to present media objects of a particular media type to an individual and autonomous software components, such as Java applets, which may only temporarily extend the capabilities of the host to present media. In addition, the term media handler includes software applications that generate media experiences in real-time, such as video games, and resident software components, such as the PointCast(trademark) agent, which present media to end users. In addition, the term media handler includes those portions of an Internet browser, also called xe2x80x9cviewersxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cplug-insxe2x80x9d, that are capable and responsible for decoding specific media types, such as JPEG images, and using the resources of their host to present the media to the end user. The media handlers may be mobile, moving from one host computer to another, or stable, anchored to one host.
Thus, in addition to their primary function of presenting media, the cooperative media handlers also serve as software agents for the research data collection agents, by gathering and deriving relevant information about the media presentation on behalf of the research data collection agents and then sending this information to the research data collection agents. The media handlers are in the best position to provide information about the media objects presented to the panel members, since the media handler can decode the particular media type, and determine what is presented to the individual, when it is presented and how the individual interacts with the object. In this manner, the media handler can report on a panel member""s exposure to and interactions with a media object, such as zooming in on a particular feature of a media object or rotating the object, and the source of the control signals, such as a specific individual or process. In the case of stable, installed media handlers, such as video games or screensaver clients; or in the case of mobile, transient media handlers, such as a Java applet advertisement, they become cooperative through the implementation of an application programming interface (API), and communicate to the research data collection agents via their host. In all of these instances, the media handler""s host might contribute contextual information, such as the web site of origin, to the media handler along with the media object.
The hosts of the research data collection agent and the cooperative media handlers preferably provide them with necessary computational resources, such as processor cycles, memory and communication. In the illustrative embodiment, an Internet browser software product, such as Netscape Navigator(trademark) or Microsoft Internet Explorer(trademark), resident on the panel member-computing device, serves as the host for both the research data collection agent and the cooperative media handler. In alternate embodiments, the host for one or both of the research data collection agent and the cooperative media handlers may be embodied as an operating system or a virtual machine, such as the Java virtual machine. The research data collection agents and the cooperative media handlers (the hosted processes) preferably use an application programming interface (API) to define the function calls which the hosted processes and their hosts use to communicate and share resources and services. In this manner, different companies can develop interoperable research data collection agents, cooperative media handlers and hosts.
When electronic media is received by a cooperative media handler, the media handler automatically extracts information from, or otherwise obtains information about, the media, including an identification tag, if present, for transmission to a research data collection agent. In addition to the extracted identification tag, if present, the cooperative media handler preferably transmits any content metadata included in or associated with the media object, an indication of the media handler""s identification number and any contextual information which has been made available to the media handler by its host, including program, episode, version, and source information for television and radio programming, or a source computer""s domain name or IP address for a web site, and content rating information, such as PICS, if available.
A research data collection agent preferably commences tracking of a panel member, and begins collecting such transmissions from the cooperative media handlers, when a panel member enters the scope of the research data collection agent and has been identified and authenticated, for example, following a log on procedure. Similarly, the research data collection agent suspends tracking of a panel member when the person leaves the scope of the remote media research agent, such as following a log off procedure. The research data collection agent (i) creates log entry objects from transmissions received from the cooperative media handlers and places the log entry objects into an unfiltered media queue, (ii) confirms the integrity of the messages and filters out unnecessary log entry objects from the unfiltered media queue to create a filtered media queue, (iii) creates dispatch objects using objects from the filtered media queue and places created dispatch objects into a dispatch queue, and (iv) transmits dispatch objects from the dispatch queue to the media research controller, when resources are available.
Identification tags are preferably placed at periodic intervals throughout the duration of continuous media, such as audio and video, or on an associated data channel. Since identification tags might be utilized by hostile software to automatically remove advertising media objects, the identification tags are preferably placed in both the advertising, as well as the associated advertising-supported media objects to discourage such automatic removal. In one preferred embodiment, xe2x80x9crealxe2x80x9d identification tags are placed in media that is to be measured (and a fraction of media that is not to be measured), and xe2x80x9cdummyxe2x80x9d identification tags are placed in other content. The research data collection agents can preferably distinguish real identification tags from dummy identification tags, and, if desired for efficiency purposes, can only return measurements about registered media objects containing real identification tags to the media research controller.
A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the present invention, will be obtained by reference to the following detailed description and drawings.